Micronesica Vol. 22 No. 1 Aug., 1989
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Micronesica 22(1):3-22, 1989. Population History of Nauru: A Cautionary Tale JANE H. UNDERWOOD Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Abstract-Available records relating to Nauruan population attributes are critically evaluated to develop a reconstructed population history of this native Micronesian people. Historical evidence consists of documentation of the effects of diseases and modern warfare and more recent behavioral changes traceable to altered economic conditions. Unpredictable and dramatic fluctuations in popu- lation characteristics throughout the historic period are revealed, precluding the use of standard population models. Even structural similarities at widely separated time periods are shown to be insufficient evidence of stable population conditions, a cautionary finding for paleodemographers, archaeologists, and others working throughout the Pacific. Introduction In most cases, reports and information about native populations are particularly in- complete for the peoples inhabiting the smaller islands and atolls which comprise the ma- jority of Pacific islands, especially in the area of Micronesia. Yet these are the populations whose continued survival and persistence in the precarious island habitat would have ne- cessitated the most sensitive adjustments of demographic processes and interactions (Un- derwood, 1981). Among these were the populations inhabiting the most geographically isolated of Micronesian islands, Nauru and Banaba (Ocean). That isolation was effec- tively ended with the commercialized development of the islands, particularly of their phosphate deposits, and was accompanied by the accumulation of a wealth of population records and census returns, particularly those pertaining to Nauru. I propose here to review and evaluate population records and census materials relat- ing to the native population of Nauru, to describe the plausible kinds and levels of dy- namic interactions which produced these population characteristics, and to develop a re- vised population history of Nauru which incorporates the results of this study. Finally, I will examine some of the limitations of applying population models in studies of anthro- pological populations which have experienced frequent and repeated episodes of major demographic disturbances. Demographic and ecological models are essential tools in studies of anthropological populations, critical for moving beyond mere description to analyses of process. Part of refining these methods and establishing areas of proper application are tests of limits, lim- its beyond which the post-Contact population history of Nauru Island stands. The nature and extent of population data now available for Nauruans, the ecological features and his- torical events there-which preclude the use of model life tables or other analytical tech- niques assuming underlying stable vital rates-all these are similar to such conditions and events among many other Pacific island populations, suggesting extreme caution in broad 4 Micronesica 22(1), 1989. application of demographic models to reconstructing Pacific island population histories and dynamics. The present study suggests the very real dangers of uncritical applications of demographic models to studies in Oceanic prehistory: one need only imagine the con- clusions which the archaeologist or paleodemographer of future centuries would logically and erroneously draw from comparing the structural similarities of the native populations of Nauru in 1908 and 1988. Population Data and Dynamics THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD Because of its geographic isolation, some 165 miles west of Ocean Island, and an encircling reef which precluded ready shore landing, Nauru apparently provided a rela- tively secure haven for those few alien castaways and escaped convicts who had begun arriving at this remote site by at least the 1830s. The consequences of their presence upon the native population, as reported in the century following Nauru's reputed discovery in 1798 by Captain Fearn of the whaler, Hunter, were dramatic. Although Fearn did not land, he reported that he saw some 300 people in canoes and more on the beaches. By the 1830s, a dozen or more foreigners apparently lived on the island, and, in 1843, Com- mander T. B. Simpson of the Giraffe recorded from one of them the history of a reign of terror imposed upon natives and foreigners by John Jones, an escapee from the notorious Norfolk Island penal colony, who resided on Nauru until 1842. Simpson estimated the number of natives residing on the island as about 1,400, and he collected from George Lovett, a resident European, a list of seven other resident foreigners (Simpson, 1844). Captain Andrew Cheyne ( 1852) found the island "thickly peopled," but reported only two resident white men at the time of his visit in 1845. At about this period, there apparently took place the first of several attempts led by beachcombers to attack and take over visiting ships. By 1852, however, the Nauruans appear rather to have enlisted the aid of beach- combers in their own retaliation against the captain and crew of the brig, lnga, and in several subsequent attacks (Jones, 1861). With the growing ill-repute of the Nauruans, rare visitors to the island in succeeding decades seldom collected or reported population estimates. One of these, recorded in The Friend (Anon., 1853), reported that a Mrs. M.D. Wallis who visited the island on August 9 (1852?) had been told by a foreign resident that the native population numbered some 1 ,500. Few clues to the population history of the Nauruans are found in those occa- sional reports which appeared thereafter and prior to the date of the first census in 1889. Captain E. B. Brown of the Nightingale reported the presence of three whites and a few Negroes at the time of his visit in October 1864, and he concluded that venereal disease was widespread among the natives (quoted in Hambruch, 1915). At least two reports refer to dispersals in the 1870s, involving the arrival of 23 Gilbertese on Nauru (Kretzschmer, 1913) and the presence of some 20 half-castes from Nauru on Kusaie (Wood, 1875). Ac- cording to the reconstruction of old Nauruan lifeways prepared by Reverend and Mrs. Phillip A. Delaporte, who established a permanent mission on the island in November 1899, informants claimed that abortion had not been practiced, although senilicide had Underwood: Population of Nauru 5 been resorted to during periods of drought and starvation (Delaport, 1920). By 1879, shortly after the beginning of a protracted period of warfare on Nauru, Reverend E. T. Doane wrote (American Board of Foreign Missions, Letters, August 6, 1879) that Nauru possessed a "population six times that of Strong's Island" (Kosrae), or roughly 1,200. The latter figure was probably closer to actual numbers than the estimated 1 ,500 to 1 ,800 reported in 1884 by Kapitan Geiseler (in Hager, 1886). In 1888, the German gunboat Eber arrived at Nauru to effect the formal German annexation of the island and the pacifi- cation of the warring factions of the population. The first enumeration of the island's residents conducted by the German administra- tion reported a total native population in 1889 of 1 ,294, including 435 adult males, 573 adult females, 139 boys and 147 girls. Kretzschmer (1913) interpreted these figures as reflecting the decremental effects of epidemics, particularly on the 15-30 age cohort, and the consequences of differential mortality from warfare on males. Similarly, Viviani (1970, p. 23) states: "The Nauruan population had declined, mostly from epidemics and disease, but the number of men killed in the ten-year war contributed to a population im- balance." Others, including Hambruch (1915) and Kayser (1918), questioned the mor- tality effects of native warfare practices, while Eckert (1935) claimed that a skewed adult sex ratio characterized the native population of (pre-war) generations. Kretzschmer noted the presence of eight white traders at the time of the German take- over (four English, two German, one American, and one Dutch), Viviani reported the arrival of a Gilbertese native pastor at about this time, and German records for 1889 also list eleven non-Nauruan "colored men" and thirteen non-Nauruan "colored women." Succeeding years witnessed the publication at increasingly shorter intervals of census re- ports providing limited information from which to estimate the early post-Contact'popula- tion history of Nauru. Before proceeding to that task, however, it is essential to evaluate the scant framework of reports from the pre-1890 period. Despite McArthur's cautions ( 1968, 1970) about the questionable reliability of many early population estimates, the figure of 1,400 presented by Captain Simpson in 1843 was probably reasonable. It is even somewhat surprising that a Nauruan population of (at least) 1,294 remained to be counted in the German census of 1889, after a half century which included at least a decade of internecine native warfare, the probable spread of venereal diseases, and the likely effects of epidemic diseases introduced by sporadic visitors. Scat- tered reports suggest that the loss of small numbers of Nauruans who sailed or were swept off at sea to other Pacific islands was at least partially balanced by the arrival of similarly displaced refugees from other islands. A few later scholars (Delaporte, 1906-07, 1920; Hambruch, 1915; Hassert 1910; Kretzschmer, 1913; Viviani, 1970; inter alia) even sought to identify native practices which might have constrained population growth in the pre- and early-Contact period. Unfortunately, there appear to be no detailed records from this period of those recurrent droughts, since amply documented, which undoubtedly in- fluenced mortality and emigration rates. Finally, it should be noted that the average popu- lation density, 66 persons per square kilometer, calculated from Simpson's (1844) popula- tion estimate, falls well below the range (230 to 680 per square kilometer) calculated by Bayliss-Smith (1974) for five Melanesian atolls relatively unaffected by European in- fluence, or for most inhabited Micronesian coral islands and atolls prior to 1945 (Hain- line, 1964). 6 Micronesica 22(1), 1989.